Review: Broken Trail (Blu-Ray)
When it comes to westerns, the big screen isn’t a very friendly home anymore, but several high-quality westerns have found a home on television and cable outlets. Such is the case with Broken Trail, which was the first original movie ever produced by American Movie Classics. Directed by veteran Western director Walter Hill and starring Robert Duvall and Thomas Hayden Church, the film won four Emmy Awards back when it was released in 2006.
That lineup of awards includes best miniseries, best lead actor, best supporting actor and best casting. Impressive lineup of gold, and Broken Trail is just about everything that another recent Western released on Blu-Ray, The Professionals, is not: It is a modern film, with modern pacing, featuring actors today’s generation will recognize, and was shot with modern-enough cameras to look sharp on HD. This helps it feel at home on the Blu-Ray format.
The story centers around an aging cowboy (Duvall) who wants to buy his own ranch and settle down, and so agrees to run a herd of horses from Oregon to Wyoming (in an era long before the convenience of Pacsafe, no less!) to sell to the British Army, and thus make the tidy sum he needs to make his dream come true.
Helping him along the way is his nephew (Church), who doesn’t really care for him. There are skeletons in the closet, and of course the journey gives them a chance to begin working out their differences.
Complications are tossed in when the pair come across a gang of ruthless slave-traders, transporting five Chinese women to a mining town where they’ll be forced into a life of prostitution. Our two horse-traders intervene and that drives the conflict of the longish movie.
Clocking in at over three hours, Broken Trail is a beautiful film, but not quite as compelling as the best “long” films, like Titanic or the Lord of the Rings movies. Still, there’s a nice set of special features and about the only drawback, really, is that the running time might seem a bit intimidating for some viewers.
Tags: Broken Trail, Pacsafe, Robert Duvall, Thomas Hayden Church
